Nature's Way

Dear Congressman,

Hopefully you are hunkered down somewhere in DC riding out the same weather system that is currently distributing copious amounts of frozen precipitation over your constituents. It was all rain in the metro area for the majority of the day before being a cold front redefined the rules of weather and brought the white death to our door steps.

So in honor of this moment, I scratched out another boring poem.

Try to stay awake this time....

I open the door to study the night
and the cold hits me hard ... and soft
as the silent way of nature's path
carves a loud scar in the sky

I try to suck it all in
the wet and the cold and the stillness and the calm
but the dryness and heat and the noise and activity
relieve me of my need for civility

So I scream at the heavens
and venture into the white
with little to lose
and much to invite

My senses excited
but my mind in a blur
I approach life decisions
to again just defer

the choices, elections, desires and craves
upon which existence sits still and behaves

I envision sherry and too many mince pies
I dream of a peacefulness not entangled with lies

I see war not declared
and peace run abounds

I hear words of sincerity
and ignore threats of despair

but my abode yonder beckons
to bring me inside
to relieve my anxieties
and restore my tattered pride

the door is now closing
the silent disappears
the path of nature's way
has now become clear

Live from Capitol Hill

Dear Congressman,

Sorry I have been remiss in updating you regularly via this blog, however I have been fairly busy recently with mundane but necessary life events. In fact, my main de-blogging factor has been paperwork, and lots of it.

But I digress...

Today I thought I would present missing transcripts from a Senate hearing the other day about the attempted Christmas bombing.

Sound of gavel banging

Senator Blouhard : This session will come to order. First victim...errr... witness will be acting head of the Transportation Security Administration, Dr. Michael Searcher. Please swear in the witness...

Mumbling and hands on a bible take place.

Senator Blouhard : Would anyone like to make an opening statement?

All Senators raise their hands and start talking at the same time.

Senator Blouhard : Eh... well, given our limited amount of time available due to prior commitments of the committee members, lets just get right to the questioning. Senator Vaine?

Senator Vaine: (staring right into the camera) Yes, Dr. Searcher, what exactly were you doing, other than not doing your job, when this man attempted to blow up this plane?

Dr. Searcher : Senator, as it was Christmas day, I spent most of the day with my family, except in the evening, when I went to an event at....

Senator Vaine : So let me get this straight, while terrorists were putting in place a plan to destroy the transportation infrastructure of these United States of America, you were gaily attending a wild party, drinking and cavorting with others and ignoring the threats against our beloved nation.

Dr. Searcher : Yes, Senator, in fact I remember seeing you there, since it was at your house and you personally had invited me.

Senator Vaine : Please let the record show that the acting director freely admitted to abandoning his duties. Thank you chairperson, I am done with this witness.

Senator Blouhard : The chair recognizes Senator Hogg.

Senator Hogg : So Dr Searcher, how long have you been drinking on the job?

Dr. Searcher : (Bewildered look) Excuse me, Senator? I don't ever remember drinking while working.

Senator Hogg : So you are telling me that you consume so much alcohol on a regular basis that you can't even remember doing it???? (stated loudly into the microphone for effect)

Dr. Searcher : That is not what I meant.

Senator Hogg : So you do sometimes remember you are at your desk even though you are completely soused?

Dr. Searcher : Senator, you are twisting my words.

Senator Hogg : Let the record show that the witness refused to answer the question.

Senator Blouhard : Thank you for that incite, Senator Hogg. The chair now recognizes Senator Egomon.

Senator Egomon : Let me say for the record, sir, that I am disgusted by your very presence. How do you live with yourself, sir, when helpless people could have been killed needlessly on that airplane on Christmas day, all because of your affinity for alcohol and love of the nightlife. If anyone lost their life that night, it would have been on your head, and I would have done everything in my power to make sure that you would have prosecuted to the full extent of the law, up to and including your execution, which I would have gladly attended and watched while they strap you up to Old Sparky and run 1.1 jigawatts through your worthless torso!!!!!

Dr. Searcher stares blankly with his mouth wide open. He turns to his counsel next to him. His counsel leans forward to the microphone.

Dr. Searcher's attorney : Does the Senator have an actual question for the witness?

Senator Egomon :Yes, I do. Dr. Searcher, since you have obviously failed miserably at your one main appointed task of preventing terrorist from attempting to kill innocent Americans, why should we not just have the District of Columbia police department come over to your offices, beat you senseless with nightsticks as you fully deserve, and throw you out onto the front lawn of the TSA administrative building so the American public can pummel you as well?

Dr. Searcher continues to stare at Senator Egomon without responding. He again turns to counsel.

Dr. Searcher's attorney :Dr. Searcher elects to invoke his fifth amendment rights at this time.

Dr. Searcher now stares at his attorney in disbelief. Flashbulbs are going off and loud background noise rises from the gallery as Senator Blouhard bangs his gavel and tries to maintain order.

END OF TRANSCRIPT...

I will to do ended

Dear Congressman,

I must confess that I am deeply worried about the state of our school systems here in the USA. Not even taking into account the destruction of grammar and spelling that is unleashed by the universe of texting, even everyday correspondences are corrupted by an inability to string together a single sentence or phrase.

For example, the following email from a well meaning but poorly educated citizen showed up in my work email box this weekend.

"Dear Sir.

Since accept order ribbons via e-mail. I express heartfelt to thanks. Because, The original e-mail address XXXXXXXXXnet.net contact To connection and delivery had problems. I will to do ended use that.

We had attached other e-mail address xxx.ribbons@xxx.xxxxx.net and cccccc.xxxx,net and xxxxxxx@so-net.xxx.tw accept order ribbons. Also, Attached my website http://www.xxxxxxxx.xxx.tw visit that please.

I hope so forever to do service for you and attached new order form.

Thank you very much!"

Not wanting to past up a possible new client, I took the time to respond.

Dear xxxxxxx@so-net.xxx.tw,

I received your correspondence dated December 6, 2009. I was pleased for yourself and your prospective business that you had corrected your IT problems and were now able to accept orders going forward. However, I would be amiss if I did not point out a few problems with your email.

1. When composing business transmittals, it is deemed proper not to be drunk when writing it. I can only assume from your inability to form a single intelligible sentence that you were on the tail end of a four day bender that did not involve any sleep.

2. In most cases, ribbons are only worn by decorated veterans or pre-teen school children who have won a track and field event. I have to ask if you have taken any time to perform any analysis to see who your market demographic might be? I thought about this for a good 15 or 20 seconds and could not come up with a target audience for your "ribbons", unless you plan on starting a new fashion trend where anorextic supermodels strut the fashion runways of the world wearing nothing but multicolored ribbons and skimpy underwear.

3. With a "tw" ending to your website, that might explain your apparent drunkenness. I have to assume you have branched out to Taiwan? In that case, may I advise that next time you have one of your English speaking staff compose your business emails, rather than your business partner's son-in-law. I am sure he convinced you that he was fluent in English after your business partner's daughter begged the two of you to hire him, but, to be blunt, his ability to speak English is closer to Donald Duck then Mickey Mouse.

Again, thanks for your business offer. However, as has happened previously, when I attempted to visit your website, my computer (and the FAA computer system in Utah, for that matter) crashed quicker than a bus full of nuns on a wet road. So, see what you can do to fix that, as causing major flight delays all over the United States will not look good on my next job application.

Go bust and die trying....

Dear Congressman,

As an accountant, I occasionally get questions about whether or not it is worthwhile to buy stock of a company that has declared bankruptcy. It appears it is very tempting to individual investors when the shares of a once proud mega-giant of American industry is trading on the stock exchanges for (usually) less than a buck a share.

Which leads to my usual response.

There is a reason that it is trading for less than a buck a share. It is worthless. Zero, nil, null, nada, nothing, zip.....

Let me see if I can explain.

As a stockholder, think of yourself as standing at the edge of a cliff. Directly in front of you are unsecured creditors, with secured creditors (think bondholders and banks here) standing in front of them.

Companies can generally file two types of bankruptcy in the USA. So we have two scenarios to cover.

First is the dreaded Chapter 7, which means the company does not see any chance of recovery and is going to sell it's assets to pay off as much as it owes as possible. In this case, the attorneys for the company basically push everyone off the cliff. The people who land on top of the others will generally be uninjured and walk away with out taking a hit. This would be the bankers and the bondholders. The next layer of people would be injured in some way but still survive to fight another day. You however, the stockholder, are either killed when you hit the ground or crushed to death when everyone falls on you. You get nothing and like it....

Second is a little thing call Chapter 11. In this case, the company decides it can not possibly pay all its bills on time but thinks they can become profitable again, if only they can call time out, ditch some of there past mistakes, and then move forward like nothing happened. For a Chapter 11, the attorneys don't push everyone as hard as they do in a Chapter 7, thus the only ones who fall off the cliff are the stockholders, as their capital in the company is redistributed to everyone else in front of them. Thus, after the shove, some of the unsecured creditors and other debtors are given company stock in lieu of their prior claim, so after the dust has settled there is a whole new set of stockholders standing at the edge of the cliff. Again, lying dead at the bottom of the cliff, you get nothing and again like it....

So why do shares trade for pennies when they are in fact worthless. Guess what folks... it's basically like playing musical chairs, only at the end of the game they remove all the chairs....

When Black Friday Comes....

Dear Congressman,

Needless to say you are probably familiar with the Steely Dan song from the seventies "Black Friday". But in the last decade or two, Black Friday has been hijacked by retailers nationwide as they attempt to create a feeding frenzy of shopping sharks who increase their annual debt load while allowing the aforementioned corporations to remain solvent for another business cycle.

However, Black Friday also has other meaning besides the current one.

Back in 1869, Black Friday referred to a financial scandal that rocked the Grant administration when two wealthy gentlemen, James Fisk and Jay Gould, decided to corner the gold market to further enrich themselves, creating an asset bubble in gold the likes of which have never been seen again... until now....

In England, Black Friday is the last Friday before Christmas, when the entire population goes on a bender for a single night, making it the busiest night of the year for pubs, nightclubs, social clubs, and any other establishment that can legally or illegally supply liquor to a voraciously thirst public. The only sober group are the EMTs, who also log the most runs of any day of the year.

Another Black Friday reference is to January 13, 1939, when fires burned down nearly 2/3's of Victoria, Australia, destroying over 3,700 buildings and killing 71. This was the second largest recorded brush fire in Australian history, burning over 2 million hectares. The largest fire occured in 1851 and burned over 5 million hectares. And what was is it referred to? Yup, the Black Thursday fire... gotta give a "D" to the Auzzies for originality on that one.

Of course, Black Friday is well represented in popular culture, as Steely Dan, Megadeath, and Flogging Molly have all penned and released songs about it.

And my favorite is the 1940 film starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Even though Lugosi is listed second on the playbill and credits, he only had a small part in the film and did not appear in any scenes with Karloff, but there is no stopping those marketing geeks when they get their brain cells fired up....

Anyway, hopefully everyone had a safe and prosperous Black Friday...

Get Reel...

Dear Congressman,

I will start with first wishing you and yours a happy and healthy Thanksgiving. Now... on to today's topic.

A very popular form of entertainment among your constituents is to hop into the family automobile, head down to the local theatre, and catch the latest Hollywood release. I myself have spent untold hours pursuing this recreational assignment, usually with mixed results.

Not to criticize the Screen Writers Guild of America, but does every script have to be written so the good guys are victorious? Sometimes it stretches the realm of reality, so given that criticism I would like to present some minor additions to the end of well known films to make them more plausible.

Independence Day (1996)

Summary : This movie ends with the survivors of the US Government hiding at Area 51 and defeating a fleet of large Alien spaceships by invading the mothership in Earth's orbit, downloading a computer virus that lowers all their protective shields, and then allows other survivors around the world to shoot down the offending over sized space crafts. Also, Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum escape from the mothership just before the thermonuclear device they left behind turns it into pixie dust.

Rewrite : After the spaceships are shot down and crashed into earth, there are quite a few aliens who survive. These aliens band together to form a resistance movement that is taken in by Kim Jong-il, since he has more in common with the aliens than with human life forms (see 2004's Team America, World Police). Under his protection, they rebuild advanced technology weapons that, within six months after their defeat, allow them to again attack the world's population and take over. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea becomes the Democratic Alien's Republic of the World.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Summary : Most everyone is familiar with the story of George Bailey and his soul reviving brush with an angel that shows him that his life does have meaning, as the movie ends with the entire town pitching in money to save his bank from ruin due to some nitwit leaving $8000 on a park bench. The bank is saved and George Bailey lives happily ever after.

Rewrite: After the happy ending, the scene cuts to 40 years in the future. Bailey Home and Loan is now BHL, Inc, the biggest writer of sub-prime mortgages in the world. It is June 2008, and George Bailey, III is trying to convince Gordon Gecko, now that he is on parole (see 1987's Wall Street), to help him to raid another more conservative bank for their capital to write more garbage mortgages in Sacramento, CA and Ft Myers, Fl. This time collapse of Bailey's bank occurs before they can pull it off, with the bankruptcy taking down the entire US financial system with it. The movie ends with George Bailey, III quietly slips out the back of his $47 million mansion with a one way ticket to Argentina as the FBI are breaking down his door with a search and arrest warrant.

The Sting (1973)

Summary: Robert Redford and Paul Newman stage a fake bookie operation against the odds to steal half a million from a gangster, Robert Shaw, who killed their friend Luther. The story ends with a faked shootout between Newman & Redford and a fooled Shaw hustled out of the betting parlor before he got arrested. Everyone laughs and splits up the money.

Re-write : One of the minor participants in the sting gets drunk at a bar and brags about what they did to a stranger. The stranger goes to Shaw, who then hunts down the conspirators one by one, saving Redford and Newman for last. The movie ends with the duo beat to a pulp on a construction site, where they are encased in concrete while still alive and used for the cornerstone of the new Bailey Home and Loan Building....

Save the kitties...

Dear Congressman,

Saw the following story on the BBC the other day....

Cat rescue earns keeper a booking

A cat got close to the action in a top-flight match in Croatia

Goalkeeper Ivan Banovic was booked after rescuing a pitch-invading cat during a top-flight match in Croatia.

Medjimurje Cakovec's Banovic picked up the wandering feline after it strayed on to the pitch 20 minutes into his team's match at Sibenik.

He placed it safely near a scoreboard but was then booked by the referee for leaving the pitch without permission.

Media reports said the official's actions annoyed fans, who barracked him for punishing Banovic's kind deed.

They say that you learn something everyday. Today I learned that in the land of my birth, Great Britain, that the President of the United States' first name is also usable as a verb for verbal abuse..... interesting.

Also, I understand that it is a rule that the referee should give a yellow card to any player who leaves the field (pitch) without their permission, however I think the governing authorities can give some leeway...maybe like one of those famous "talking to's" complete with exaggerated hand gestures and "I am in charge" command voice, rather than reaching into the back pocket and whipping out the yellow warning card for performing a humane and civic duty.

If this is the course we are taking, where it is more important to stay between painted limestone lines rather than getting a helpless creature out of harms way, I suggest that we just issue goalkeepers a large club to keep in the back of the net, that way they can bash the offending mammal into submissions before flinging it into the crowd, thus allowing some lucky spectator the prospect of "road-kill" stew after the match...

Or not...